sprained finger

[LiftGirl]

Sprained a finger (left middle) at the gym wed night. I was unloading weights from the bar in a stupid way that resulted in my finger being hit by the falling bar.

Anyway got it checked Thurs morning, since it was extremely tender, swollen and a lovely shade of purple (my favorite color!) They didn't see anything on the x-rays, so they said it was sprained and would be better in a couple days. They buddy taped it to the wring finger.

Next planned lifting session is Sat. I was wondering if anybody has suggestions for working around this? It still hurts like hell to bend it, so I've continued the buddy taping, which keeps it from bending, so much less pain! The problem is that gripping a bar might be out of the question. I do have wrist straps, but i'm not sure if just the pinky, index finger and thumb can get a strong enough grip, even with straps.

I might have to use (ick!) machines until it gets better.

How feminine - an extremely tender, swollen and lovely shade of purple left middle finger. That will be a slow heal if you don't reinjure it along the way.

Great time to work on one-handed lifts and, yes, machines might be necessary.

Guess you'll have to use your right hand to pick your nose.

[Gooseneck]

Good time to work on legs. Sorry about the injury, those are always very painful but should be a little better every day.

[westside24]

just try doing a few exercises that do not involve using your hand grip so much but use the same bodyparts.

do like squats, GHRs, Pushups, hands open dips, sommersaults, cart wheels... haha just kiddin bout the last two.

get better soon!

[LiftGirl]

well, I decided to test things by trying a pull-up with my left hand wrist-strapped. That way if it didn't work I'd just fall down at worst. Well, I couldn't even pull myself up with the index finger, thumb and pinky over the strap so i decided free weights were out of the question. I also decided to stick with machines that use weight stacks and pins so I wouldn't have to keep bothering Scot to load plates for me.

We have a pretty decent nautilus circuit, so I did the machines that were compound and skipped the isos. Doing all the machines would have been too much, and I preferred to focus on compounds. I'm actually surprised at how effective the machines were. I skipped the ab machine, yet my abs are still really sore today.

So I guess machines were not quite as ick as i thought.

[westside24]

Originally Posted by LiftGirl

So I guess machines were not quite as ick as i thought.

Thats what im preaching. The squat machine I been using is wonderful... I know I should learn to do a perfect squat, which I will in time,(its my new goal) but this machine is really helping me to concentrate on using both legs, and I still can get so low. heres an example of what it looks like.

http://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/LVSquat.html

Its just like that, but no stack, its plate loaded up top on both sides, and instead of keeping the hands foward I just grab the shoulder pads so its like im still hold the bar, and then I got to focus a little more on staying perfectly upright like a real squat (although the shoulder pads anchor you in there pretty well, but not perfectly)

hope your finger heals quick!

[LiftGirl]

Originally Posted by westside24

hope your finger heals quick!

thanks, me too! It's a real pain in the butt.

Really??? A pain in the butt??? What a strange place to feel the pain of a sprained finger.........

[Gooseneck]

Originally Posted by LiftGirl

thanks, me too! It's a real pain in the butt.

Well you're not supposed to put your finger in ...........

[LiftGirl]

Haha! You guys are sooooooo funny

[MscFactory]

Let it heal, im pretty sure it will be fine enough to exercise with on saturday if your doing light weights. But damn that sounded like it really did hurt.

[LiftGirl]

It actually didn't hurt that bad right when I did it; it was just like stubbing a toe. But then 10 mins later or so, it really started hurting. Now it doesn't hurt as long as it doesn't bend, (at least most of the time it doesn't hurt) but it still is very tender to the touch and quite painful to bend. I think I got it pretty good.

[westside24]

Originally Posted by LiftGirl

It actually didn't hurt that bad right when I did it; it was just like stubbing a toe. But then 10 mins later or so, it really started hurting. Now it doesn't hurt as long as it doesn't bend, (at least most of the time it doesn't hurt) but it still is very tender to the touch and quite painful to bend. I think I got it pretty good.

So hows your finger/hand doing? Good I hope. Maybe this will lead you and others to help me where to find one of these

Looks like it would definately help grip strength, theres a viideo of this dude on youtube using it too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di3RLGoBN1E

I wanna know where to find one of these, if its cheap enough I would buy one just to try it out.

[LiftGirl]

Originally Posted by westside24

So hows your finger/hand doing?

Thanks for asking It's all better now. About a week and a half after the initial injury I was able to do free weights again. I taped the joint to limit it's ROM because full bending was still painful at that point. About three weeks after the injury it was completely better. There's still a bump, but no pain or stiffness or limited flexibility persits. My dad says the bump is just scar tissue and will go away in a year or so.

[westside24]

good to hear! so it dont feel like something you can possibly reinjure?